Sarah Paine

If you go too far, typically what'll happen is you will trigger a third party intervention.

And what may have been feasible before that third party joined the party may no longer be.

So this is the point of the terminology.

Oh, commercial break is over and let's get going on the Russo-Japanese War.

Here's a nice map of it.

So it starts out with a Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur, Lushun, modern name, I'm using a traditional name.

It's on the Liaodong Peninsula.

This is the main Russian base.

The Japanese have to get those ships in base and sink them even better because their supply lines are in danger if that navy's out and about.

Simultaneously, they land an army in Korea that's gonna go northwest into Manchuria.

And if you look at the railway line, it goes Port Arthur all the way to Harbin up there.

That's the east-west junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

In those days, that's the Chinese Eastern Railway.

And I've only listed a couple of the major battles, but basically, it's going up the railway system from Port Arthur upward.

And you got the Liaoyang and Mukden railway

And Japan has got only four armies until the very end of the war when it gets a fifth.

And one army, as long as Port Arthur has ships in it, it has to be stuck there, besieging it.

And Japan's theory of victory in this thing is to have an annihilating battle.

That's what Bismarck had done to the French in the Battle of Sudan.

And so the Japanese really need to get that army out of Port Arthur so that it can concentrate on these other battles.